Acclaimed artist Emilie Taylor’s brand new exhibition, ‘Edgelands’, has opened at Gallery Oldham.
In this new body of work, the potter explores the lives of the young women who exist on the edge of society, and on the edge of womanhood.
They live between the urban and the rural, between childhood and adulthood, which she describes as the ‘Edgelands’.
Emilie, who has previously worked in frontline mental health and drug services for ten years, will give a talk in the gallery at 2pm on 28 June.
The young women depicted in this exhibition are ordinary young women doing ordinary things – things Emilie and her friends did in their youth.
In the tale of Persephone and Demeter goddesses become mortal, but the classical forms of Emilie’s ceramics seem to elevate the lives of mortals to the same level of interest as goddesses.
Maggie Kufeldt, Executive Director of Health and Wellbeing, said: “Emilie has recently been tipped by the Contemporary Art Society as an artist to watch and we are thrilled that she has agreed to develop an exhibition with us at this stage of her career.
“There are some stunning pieces in the exhibition, which are all for sale.”
The theme of fertility also runs through the exhibition in the story of Demeter the goddess of harvest and fertility and her daughter Persephone, in the fields of corn on the ceramics, traditionally used to decorate harvest jugs, and not least because during the two-year preparations for this exhibition Emilie became a mother herself.
‘Edgelands’ is open at Gallery Oldham from 10am to 5pm, on Monday to Saturday, until 9 September. Find out more online: www.galleryoldham.org.uk
It has been commissioned by Gallery Oldham with support from Arts Council England and will tour to the Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent, The Craft Study Centre in Farnham and The Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead throughout 2017-2018. All work is for sale.
